


Ballrooms and Balconies

by Principia



Series: Carmichael Industries 2.0 [1]
Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 07:20:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/976032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Principia/pseuds/Principia





	Ballrooms and Balconies

Chuck's up on the balcony, scanning the expansive ballroom for this evening's quarry, and he sighs.

He'd thought they were moving past this period in their lives, that Sarah had completely lost her taste for this. All of this.

Not just the guns and the ever-present threats hovering over their heads, CIA or no CIA, but the constant pretense. Never being able to set a foot in public without every move being for someone else's benefit.

But these days? She doesn't mind the same way she had been before...

A lot of things have changed for both of them.

Chuck shakes himself. Better snap out of it and get his mind back on the task at hand.

Moments later, as if by the power of positive thinking, _there_ he is.

Chuck's eyes land on a middle-aged man, average height, unremarkable except for how professorial he looks compared to so many of the beautiful people attending this gala.

Demarcus Schuyler, the corporate whistleblower Carmichael Industries had been hired to protect, and to help smuggle information -- out of his own company.

The other impressive thing is how deferential most of those beautiful people at least _seem_ to be, nodding respectfully and murmuring greetings as they pass the head of Schuyler Agronomics, hesitant to interrupt the conversation in which he's engrossed. It wouldn't do to distract the boss by even so much as drawing his eyes away from the _spectacularly_ lovely woman who's talking with him as if they were old friends.

"Bartowski," Morgan grunts in his ear. 

Even without Casey in Los Angeles, Chuck swears Morgan keeps getting more like the man by the day.  "Getting chatter that the wife should be here any minute."

Schuyler lets out a warm hoot of laughter, loud enough that several of his employees cast surprised, bemused looks in his direction.

"Sorry, ex-wife. Separated... anyway," Morgan continues, before quickly trailing off.

Chuck feels himself sighing again, as he looks wistfully at the woman  currently listening to Schuyler as he relates some tale, gesturing enthusiastically.  It's small wonder she's holding his attention so thoroughly;  Sarah  _does_ have a talent for bringing out the best in nerds.

This time it's Sarah who laughs, softly enough that it doesn't pull much attention Schuyler's way, but Chuck knows the sound so well by now he doesn't need to be able to hear it to feel the responding warmth in his core.

Suddenly, Schuyler rounds on one foot, and turns half away from Sarah to look straight at Chuck from all the way across the expansive room. He waves to Chuck in a friendly, if slightly impatient way, a drink clutched in his other hand.

Almost like it was on cue, Sarah's looking down demurely, as if Chuck were someone she doesn't even know. She's still got all the moves.

Sarah tosses her head back artfully, moving the bang that had been coming danger close to a peekaboo up and out of her face.

Sarah's grown her hair out longer again, but it's still curled whenever they're out for a special occasion.

"This is a house with two Bartowskis in it. At least  _one_ of us should have curls," she'd teased as she'd been getting ready for tonight, scrunching her nose and sticking her tongue out at him in the mirror.

To Chuck's surprise, Sarah's eyes meet his. She's barely smiling, her lips turned ever so slightly upward with serene poise, but her eyes are sparkling as if she's keeping a special secret, one meant for just the two of them.

Chuck feels a grin coming on, but he stifles the instinct, instead giving Sarah a muted, collegial smile and nod.

Chuck feels the telltale vibration of this new bone conduction earpiece before Morgan can even start to speak, and he can already sense he's in for a scolding.

"Hey, hey, hey, you two lovebirds, enough with the googly eyes and flirty hair stuff," Morgan mutters in his best attempt to be stern, "the eagle has landed. Eagle. Harpy? What did we decide we're calling the missus?"

Okay, maybe he's not _that_ much like Casey.

Chuck allows himself a half-grin as he turns to head for the stairs down to the main ballroom floor. It's showtime.


End file.
